SHERMAN, Maine — Two or three times a month, the regulars travel two or more hours to dine at the Aroostook County restaurant in the 135-year-old purple Victorian mansion.
After opening last year, Sherman’s quirky Salted Butter Farm restaurant now draws big crowds from both the northern- and southernmost parts of the state, said Jenny MacArthur, who owns the business with her husband Jon Purdy.
“The last two bourbon dinners we’ve had, the place was packed with people from Kennebunkport,” Purdy said.
Nestled in Baxter State Park’s shadow, Salted Butter Farm offers a dining experience that includes fresh, made-from-scratch everything, served on an offbeat collection of mismatched vintage china straight from many Mainers’ attics, said MacArthur.
It is a place where stories are made.
On Monday, a couple from southern Maine stopped in for lunch announcing, “We just got married.”
And just this month, Salted Butter Farm was named Maine Tourism’s Best Restaurant in Aroostook County.
Because of the restaurant’s proximity to Baxter State Park and Mount Katahdin, it often gets outdoor adventurers for a meal or two.
Salted Butter Farm’s two classically trained chefs, MacArthur and Purdy, opened the doors last June after a year’s worth of delays, and they sold out of everything the first weekend. From that day until now, their ideas and experiences have just gotten better, they said.
But they did not get to this place of success easily; it’s been a rough couple years.
Originally, the couple signed a contract for a home in Patten they thought was perfect for their restaurant and residence. But after they sold their Newburgh home during the COVID-19 pandemic, the owner backed out of the deal at the last minute, selling it to another buyer with a higher offer.
With nowhere to go, Purdy, MacArthur and their three children moved into a home in MacArthur’s family in Shin Pond.
The search for a restaurant property continued and in February 2023, they found the historic A.B. Leavitt home on Gardiner Street in Sherman. Before they closed on the property, that winter’s 65-below-zero cold snap froze the pipes, and the historic radiators and plumbing exploded, they said.
And while they had hoped to open in November 2023, there was too much to complete, including adding a brand new septic system, replacing all the historic radiators, scraping off layers and layers of wallpaper, building a commercial kitchen on the side of the house, refinishing floors and painting everything.
It took four months to get an electrician, it was hard to find a plumber and the construction crew took another job in Houlton. When the last bathroom was installed, the kitchen flooded and they had to have all that replaced. The porch needed a new roof, and they had to jack the whole carriage house up.
But in the end, the restaurant became an “Alice in Wonderland” mismatched tale of vintage china from grandmothers, aunts and long-forgotten attics. There’s a hidden “Harry Potter”-style cupboard for kids under the stairs, original Tiffany chandeliers, refurbished and off-beat light switches, and a farm market store with Salted Butter Farm frozen meals to go.
“When you come here for a meal, you are purchasing an experience from us — not just food. Food is our passion and taking care of people is important to us,” MacArthur said. “It makes me so happy when someone sits here and they do that thing, like ‘Ummm,’ and I’m like, ‘Yes!’”
Recently, a man licked his plate of gravy to his wife’s horror, MacArthur said.
“He is making me the happiest woman on the planet,” she said. “If a grown man is willing to lick his plate in a restaurant in front of me, he made my whole day.”
What sets them apart and draws distant diners is their offbeat divergence from standard fare, they said.
Diners can choose from a six-page menu that includes crab Rangoon pizza, beef tips smothered in gravy on mashed potatoes, “Papa’s Pasta Supper Club” with different sauce options and Jamaican jerk shrimp. MacArthur has been making their most popular appetizer, cheesy garlic bread, for nearly 35 years. There are no fried foods, and everything is made from scratch.
“I make our refried beans the way I was taught by one of our dishwashers back in Tuscon. I was making refried beans one day and he said, ‘Do you want me to show you how my nana does it?’” Purdy said. “I said, ‘Absolutely,’”
Quite by chance, three guys from Windham, riding their beach cruiser bicycles 400 miles from Madawaska to Kittery, stopped by Salted Butter Farm this month.
The trio rolled up on their bikes and Purdy was inside prepping food while MacArthur was cutting trees with a chainsaw in the yard. It was graduation weekend and they were closed, she said.
“They said they had planned the whole day around eating at the restaurant,” Purdy said, adding that two of the men were vegan and gluten free, and there was nowhere in the area that catered to their dietary needs. “They said, ‘Can we have a piece of bread?’ And I thought, ‘We can’t let these people go,’ so I said, ‘OK what do you want?’”
They chose several of the restaurant’s Mexican-style dishes, he said.
“The experiences we have here are unparalleled,” MacArthur said. “The people that we meet are just amazing.”
Thanksgiving was their favorite day of the whole year, with the entire restaurant filled for both seatings. On Valentine’s Day, they ran out of three gallons of homemade Alfredo sauce.
One of their original ideas — a separate family dining room with a secret closet for kids they call the “Harry Potter Closet” — was one they had considered changing, but are glad they did not.
Some regulars come in for Friday night date night and the kids can eat or play freely while the parents enjoy a meal out. One woman, whose husband is often traveling, comes in for Sunday brunch. She orders a pancake for her three kids to share and while they sometimes pick at the pancake, they mostly play while she enjoys a hot omelette and hot coffee, said MacArthur.
Food is their passion, and they don’t care if diners show up on their ATVs with muddy boots or even wearing slippers.
All they ask is that you come hungry.
